„Kõik on muidugi selle poolt.” Koosoleku motiiv sotsialistliku korra retrospektiivsel kujutamisel

”Everybody’s in favour, of course.” Meetings as a motif in retrospective depictions of the socialist order Keywords: comparative literature, prose, motif, meetings, totalitarianism, Soviet regime This article examines the portrayal of meetings in four novels: Enn Vetemaa’s “The Musician” (Pillimees), Herta Müller’s “The Land of Green Plums” (Herztier), Elena Chizhova’s “The Time of Women” (Vremia zhenshchin), and Eugen Ruge’s “In Times of Fading Light” (In Zeiten des abnehmenden Lichts). These works all explore the experience of living under a totalitarian regime, where the system had either fundamentally changed or collapsed by the time of the novels’ publication. Meetings play a significant role in conveying this experience. In The Musician, the meeting unfolds as a trap, destroying the accused while leaving others trapped in endless contemplation of the events. “The Land of Green Plums” employs meetings to articulate the trauma of life under totalitarianism. Chizhova’s novel uses meetings as manifestations of the suffocating effects of the totalitarian regime and the way desperate people reinforce the system. In Ruge’s work, the meeting motif serves primarily to reveal the spatiotemporal context and the prevailing worldview of the era. In these narratives, meetings often appear as recollections that disrupt the contemporary plotline or paralyze the character’s perception. Instead of advancing dialogue, the texts focus on the formality of the meetings, emphasizing their ritualistic nature and the characters’ lack of agency. During and after the meetings, protagonists feel alienated from the events and even from themselves. In most cases, meetings leave behind traumas that time fails to heal. Across these novels, the meeting emerges as a powerful symbol of an oppressive, at times even life-threatening, system. This motif serves to reflect on the enduring impact of a bygone regime – or, in some cases, its remnants that continue to persist.